Friend Matt, I don't know how I missed this over the holidays - but I'm glad that it was resurrected, like Larry in his crypt at Llanwelly, so that I could find it tonight. Such prodigious talents you are blessed with, sir! A Healer, a Toymaker... and a Poet.

But for the passel of brothers (in my case, it was ever-aborning cousins), and the slight shift from Silver Age to Bronze Age, your story reminds me much of my own childhood in lake-effect Defiance. Like all genuinely rich writing, your piece speaks to me particularly, even though the details are yours specfiically.

The snow. No, back then - The Snow (which seems to have returned this winter of '13 - '14, for the first time); Santa's Christmas, and Christ's Mass; priceless gifts both of tales told round the fire, and of the little sculpted bits of petroleum byproduct from those OTHER bibles of Christmas, the Wish Books.

From this same crayon set, each year, I would take a blue crayon and mark down the date of the first snowfall in the back cover of an Incredible Hulk coloring book I had. I kept this same crayon to write with every year. I was an observer of ritual even then.

Here I am with my brother receiving the same book in 1979. Same book different Christmas memory.

A much shorter one, as it just serves as an Intro to my book. But I hope it sparks memories for some.

Merriest,-Craig

Picture if you will a brisk Christmas Eve of the early 1970’s in the snowy countryside around Defiance, Ohio. A teenage boy and his young sister sneak away from the extended family festivities taking place in a wood-paneled basement, to hunker down on the carpeting in front of the hulking Entertainment Center upstairs. The strains of Bernard Herrmann conducting Tchaikovsky’s Theme from Piano Concerto No.1 (aka Tonight We Love) begin, and soon the two are whisked away to Queen Victoria’s England—and somehow, to Franklin Roosevelt’s America at the same time!

WOWO Ft. Wayne (“The 50,000 Watt Voice of Farming”) was rebroadcasting Lionel Barrymore’s classic 1939 Campbell Playhouse production of “A Christmas Carol”—furnished, most likely, by legendary radio syndicator Charlie Michelson. The show was as magical that night as when first heard on the eve of the Second World War, and its powerful dramatization of Dickens’ heart-gripping tale of redemption was to be one of the main reasons why the present writer—only 4 years old when Classic Radio Drama was decimated by the American networks in 1962— became a life-long lover of “The Theater of the Imagination,” as well as a sometime portrayer of Ebenezer Scrooge.

That brother and sister both still love that production to this day. Like your first children’s book, your first song, or your first date, your first Carol is often one of those things that stays with you forever...

I don't know about anyone else, but I have read this essay every year on Christmas Eve since it was first published here on the boards in 2011. It has become a Christmas tradition for me. For anyone who has not read it, do yourself a favor. It will take you back to a warm, cozy, carefree time that we can all relate to. I'll be reading it tomorrow night, as always, myself.

I don't know about anyone else, but I have read this essay every year on Christmas Eve since it was first published here on the boards in 2011. It has become a Christmas tradition for me. For anyone who has not read it, do yourself a favor. It will take you back to a warm, cozy, carefree time that we can all relate to. I'll be reading it tomorrow night, as always, myself.

I don't know about anyone else, but I have read this essay every year on Christmas Eve since it was first published here on the boards in 2011. It has become a Christmas tradition for me. For anyone who has not read it, do yourself a favor. It will take you back to a warm, cozy, carefree time that we can all relate to. I'll be reading it tomorrow night, as always, myself.

I hope everyone has a very Merry Christmas and happy holidays!

-Andy

Dear Andy--

What a wonderful, kind thing to say. You made my Christmas, buddy. I am so pleased my little memoir has touched people here on this list. It means more to me than you know.

Merry Christmas!

Best,

Matt

Logged

"I don't want to live in the past. I just don't want to lose it." -The Two Jakes

I had seen the ad on TV—how they glowed. How they had a carrying case which doubled as a monster castle. How a lab table could energize them to glow in the dark. I delighted at the prospect that the monsters could hang out as friends, like the Justice League. Even as a child I knew there was something off about Remco toys, something a little different—special even. They were like regular toys turned on their side… they had attitude.

They had TV ads for the Remco monsters?Would love to see if they still survive somewhere today.